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MEMORIAL 
D A Y 




•ecor.u copy, 

16*9. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

(hap. Copyrighl ><•, 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MEMORIAL DAY 
AND OTHER POEMS 



MEMORIAL DAY 

And Other Poems 

/ 

RICHARD BURTON 




BOSTON 
COPELAND AND DAY 

M DCCC XCVII 




CEIVED 



345S 



O 



COPYRIGHT 1897 BY COPELAND AND DAY 



WW , 



Contents 

MEMORIAL DAY Page I 

MATTERHORN QUESTS 6 

IN TIME OF BATTLE 7 

A FAITHFUL DOG J 

SO MUCH TO LEARN 8 

THE LITTLE MOTHERS 9 

THE PROLOGUE IO 

THE OLD TENOR I 3 

THE PHANTOM DRUM I 5 

THE RACE OF THE "BOOMERS" l6 

BALLAD OF THE EASTERN WOMAN 20 

BALLAD OF THE THORNLESS ROSE 27, 

IRONY 25 

MAD— TOWN 26 

MELODIES OF THE MONTHS 29 

MARCH FIELDS 29 

APRIL 29 

MAY-LURE 30 

JUNE 31 

HAYING 3 I 

BIRD NOTES 33 

THE LARK 33 

THE CAT BIRD 33 

THE MEISTERSINGER 34 

THE HUMMING— BIRD 35 

THE BLUE BIRD 35 

THE GROUND ROBIN 36 

FROM THE GRASS 37 

LOVE IS STRONG 38 



CLAIRVOYANCE P<*gt 3 8 

MY UPPER SHELVES 39 

CONTRASTS 4.O 

DAY AND NIGHT MUSIC 40 

4* 

42 

43 
43 
44 
44 
45 



CLOWN AND KING 
OF MUSIC 

GREAT AND SMALL 
ANTICLIMAX 
PERSONIFICATION 
WINTER TWILIGHT 
THE RURAL PIPE 

THE RAIN ON THE ROOF 46 

A MYSTERY 47 

TO A MOUNTAIN BROOK 47 

DEMOCRACY 48 

LYRIC AND EPIC 48 

ON A FERRY— BOAT 49 

RECOLLECTIONS 50 

AS A VIOLINIST 52 

TRAGI-COMEDY 52 

THE MARSH FLOWER 52 

SAINTHOOD 53 

AN AUTUMN IMPRESSION 54 

CHARITY 5 5 

STREAM AND SINGER 55 

CRICKETS 56 

SEA WITCHERY 57 

IN A LIBRARY 57 

BROOKLYN BRIDGE 58 

A PALIMPSEST 58 

FROM A CITY WINDOW 59 



REMEMBERED SONGS P a S e ^° 

COLUMBUS 60 

BEAUTY STILL WAITS 6 1 

THE SOUL'S HOUR 6 1 

ACROSS THE INTERVALE 62 

HARMONY 6l 

A PRAYER 63 

IN THE EAST 6$ 

DISSONANCES 64 

BETWEEN THE SUNS 64 

THE PINES 65 

MY POETS 65 

TWO MOTHERS 66 

SEA AND SHORE 67 

USES 67 

A SEASCAPE OF TURNER^ 6j 

PERMANENCY 68 

ON SYRIAN HILLS 68 

PERSONALITY 69 

THE PRAYERS OF SAINTS 69 
TREES IN WINTER 

THE PATH 71 

A ROYAL PROGRESS J 2 

EPITAPH OF AN ACTOR 7 2 
RECOMPENSE 

RICHARD WAGNER J 2 

SUNRISE 73 

RAIN AND SLEEP 73 

TRANSFORMATION 73 



THE POET 

HE ' S not alone an artist weak and white 
O'er-bending scented paper, toying there 
With languid fancies fashioned deft and 

fair, 
Mere sops to time between the day and 
night. 
He is a poor torn soul who sees aright 

How far he fails of living out the rare 
Night-visions God vouchsafes along the air ; 
Until the pain burns hot, beyond his might. 

The heart-beat of the universal will 

He hears, and, spite of blindness and dis- 
proof, 

Can sense amidst the jar a singing fine. 
Grief-smitten that his lyre should lack the skill 

To speak it plain, he plays in paths aloof, 

And knows the trend is starward, life divine. 



MEMORIAL DAY 

" By their great memories the Gods are known." 

Geo. Meredith. 
I. 

MAY is the firstling of the summer year, 
Bland month and beautiful beneath the sky ; 
An Elim where the water-wells are clear, 
When winter's bitter Marah is gone by. 
May faces toward the pleasance yet to be, 
The greenwood splendors, the maturity 
Of bloom, — Hope's home is May — and May 
is here. 

What semblance flashes so divinely clear 

Yet mystic to the dazzled eye as this 

Of Hope? Not Youth alone, but manhood's 

cheer, 
Old age's desolation, sorrow's kiss 
Above a tomb, — these all draw strength from 

her, 
Quenchless, the first, the final comforter, 
What Being utterly shall of her miss ? 

But kinsman proper unto Hope, the bright, 
Is Memory, elder, graver, wrapt in Time 
As in a mantle : mellow is the light 
She casts, obliquely : images sublime 
She conjures up, and barren were the days 
That missed the magic of her holy haze, 
Making old seasons seem a summer clime. 



Memorial Yea, not in Hope alone are mortals strong : 
D a y- They have their memories ; looking down the 
past, 
We do behold them, a most stately throng 
Of figures in a mould heroic cast : 
Recumbent, but all vital to arouse 
A nation, and to quicken a people's vows 
By proud ensample of the lives that last. 

If by their memories the Gods are known, 
So too are men and women, for they grow 
God-like in telling over all their own 
Emblazoned deeds ; heroes are nourished so, 
Idealisms spring, romances thrive 
Wherever those with heart and hope alive 
Draw solace from the great of long ago. 

Moved by this sense of dignity inurned 
In scenes historic and in moments great, 
Heart-touched by tender thoughts of knighthood 

earned 
On scarlet fields, each hero-mindful state 
Gathers around the graves of fallen sons, 
And covers up the flesh-scars and the guns 
With flowers, those soft efFacers of old hate. 

II. 

May and the sunshine keen on everything ! 
But hark ! the martial music's solemn sound : 
Now, in the forefront of the plastic spring, 
Pause momently, and let the ancient wound 
Quiver again, — not for dark rancour's sake, 

2 



But only forever to keep wide awake Memorial 

Memories of deaths superb and courage-crowned. & a y* 

Now is the cleavage deep of North and South 
Well closed, — the years o'er-cover it, as grass 
Softens and sweetens some dry p]ace of drouth 
When comes the blessed rain ; the requiem -mass 
Is chanted of the mood that shattered peace : 
Where common sorrows are, anger must cease : 
Sorrow and love remain, while passions pass. 

And if there come wild words of East and West, 

Let us invoke our mighty memories 

Even as the Gods again ; declare it best 

To sail together over tranquil seas, 

One ship, one helmsman, one ambition high : 

To show the world a strength that can lay by 

War, and the thought of war, and such as these. 

Yea, mingle prayers above the Blue and Gray, 

And be the paeans raised for patriot sires 

Who in that hour of Freedom's yesterday 

Fought sturdily, and lit their beacon fires 

For what they deemed the Right. The victor 

shows 
Himself twice victor when his sometime foes 
Are hailed as brothers, even as Christ requires. 

How like cathedral chimes the names we know, 
Ringing above a leal united land : 
Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Shiloh, 
Sherman's grim march to reach the white sea-strand, 
3 



Memorial Lookout's cloud fight, The Wilderness, — each bell 
^ a y- Reverberating valor — list! they tell 

How Lincoln and Lee are friends, and under- 
stand. 

III. 
What is a patriot ? Not the man who swears : 
" My country, right or wrong ; " nor he who 

claims 
That sacred thing, yet like a dastard dares 
To use her to his ends, to hide his shames ; 
Nor yet the weakling sore afraid to chide 
For fear he seem untrue : the gap is wide 
'Twixt empty mouthings and high manhood's 

aims. 

A patriot ? He should be a blend of faith 
And fealty and fear of any stain 
Upon his mistress' honor ; for the wraith 
Of mere Appearance many a man hath slain, 
Who reckoned that blind praise was Duty's all. 
Who loves, chastises ; at his country's call, 
Behold him valiant in the van again! 

He agonizes o'er the awful plight 

Of that disfeatured host that lacks for bread ; 

He watches Labor in her new-found might 

Strike at Monopoly's dire dragon head; 

He lets the Time-spirit lead him towards the 

truth, 
That mind see clear and heart be moved to ruth 
For the land's children who are sore-bested. 

4 



O Country ! vast, — dramatic, thrilled with Hfe, Memorial 

O mother ! bountiful of womb and breast, Day. 

We may reproach thee, even use the knife 

For pain's release upon thy body, lest 

Fair growth be checked, — but should an alien 

dare 
Befoul thy fame, a lion from its lair 
Each state shall spring, each burg prove loyalest. 

Into thy sinews enter Norse and Celt, 

The German and the Gaul, they westward steer : 

From the frore north and from the southern belt 

Of nations come the folk to fellow here : 

But under-bone is English, sturdy stock, 

Pliant to Fate, yet founded like a rock : 

Fraternal, all, in Freedom's atmosphere ! 

For higher, holier than the will to war 

The will to love, — now may the path of Peace 

Within our states be like the pilot star 

In the night sky, by myriads to increase 

As the millennium broadens, gleam by gleam : 

This is the prophet's word, the poet's dream : 

All nations living in love's great release. 

Call not this womanish, a sluggard's hope : 
When whilom brave men lay their swords aside, 
They still are brave : but they no longer grope 
In the earth-chambers where the beasts abide, 
But, feet firm-based, they lift their foreheads high 
Into the ample air, and from the sky 
Draw loftier inspirations, larger-eyed. 
5 



Memorialize y on this day memorial ne'er forget 
Day. 'y]^ v i s ioned good, the revelation august 

Of Peace betwixt the peoples : may we let 
Our martial blood be cleansed of any lust 
Of war, and this America clasp hands 
Close with the parent English, two proud lands 
Before the world who let their weapons rust. 

Memories and hopes ! O mingle on this day 
Savored with flowers, made sacred by the tears 
Of mourners, musical with the far-away 
Sound of large doings from the vanished years ; 
And buoyant, midst the mused tenderness, 
Through the stanch creed that, slowly, Wrong 

grows less, 
The while our land, God guided, hath no fears! 

MATTERHORN QUESTS 

AS men essay the Matterhorn — 
That peering peak of stone and snow — 
To view, some matchless Alpine morn, 

The petty world stretch far below, 
Though after all their toil and pain 
They can but clamber down again ; 

So yearning souls essay the heights 

Of spirit, setting dangers by, 
And recking naught of low delights 

The flesh affords ; you ask them why, 
They know not ; some divine unrest 

Bids them to climb and do their best. 



IN TIME OF BATTLE 

IT is a seemly thing to die in battle, 
Ensanguined for the Right ; 
The sudden swoon, the ominous death-rattle, 

Mere phantoms in the fight 
Against the music and the Victor's cry ; 
'Tis noble so to die. 

And if one fail, 'tis well in such disaster 

Like Saul to end the day ; 
Philistine spears fly fast and blood flows faster, 

The leader falls, but they, 
His dauntless sons, fall with him, all the three 

Under a tamarisk tree 
In Jabesh ! And it is a fate full splendid 

To win a funeral song 
Like David's, love and leonine sorrow blended 

All passionate and strong ; 
The King made moan for Saul, his Mighty One ; 

But most for Jonathan. 

A FAITHFUL DOG 

MY merry-hearted comrade on a dav 
Gave over all his mirth, and went away 
Upon the darksome journey I must face 
Sometime as well. Each hour I miss his grace, 
His meek obedience and his constancy. 
Never again will he look up to me 
With loyal eyes, nor leap for my caress 
As one who wished not to be masterless ; 
And never shall I hear hi- pleading bark 



A Outside the door, when all the ways grow dark, 

Faithful Bidding t he house-folk gather close inside. 
It seems a cruel thing, since he has died, 
To make his memory small, or deem it sin 
To reckon such a mate as less than kin. 

O faithful follower, O gentle friend, 
If thou art missing at the journey's end, 
Whate'er of joy or solace there I find 
Unshared by thee I left so far behind, 
The gladness will be mixed with tears, I trow, 
My little crony of the long ago ! 
For how could heaven be home-like, with the 

door 
Fast-locked against a loved one, evermore ? 

SO MUCH TO LEARN 

SO much to learn ! Old Nature's ways 
Of glee and gloom with rapt amaze 
To study, probe, and paint, — brown earth, 
Salt sea, blue heavens, their tilth and dearth, 
Birds, grasses, trees, — the natural things 
That throb or grope or poise on wings. 

So much to learn about the world 
Of men and women ! We are hurled 
Through interstellar space awhile 
Together, then the sob, the smile, 
Is silenced, and the solemn spheres 
Whirl lonesomely along the years. 

8 



So much to learn from wisdom's store So Much 

Of early art and ancient lore. To Learn. 

So many stories treasured long 

On temples, tombs, and columns strong. 

The legend of old eld, so large 

And eloquent from marge to marge. 

So much to learn about one's self: 
The fickle soul, the nimble elf 
That masks as me ; the shifty will, 
The sudden valor and the thrill ; 
The shattered shaft, the broken force 
That seems supernal in its source. 

And yet the days are brief. The sky 
Shuts down before the waking eye 
Has bid good-morrow to the sun ; 
The light drops low, and Life is done. 
Good-by, good-night, the star-lamps burn ; 
So brief the time, so much to learn ! 

THE LITTLE MOTHERS 

STRANGE mockery of motherhood ! 
They who should feel the fostering care 
Maternal, and the tender good 

Of home when fondling arms are there, 

Must, ere their time, in mimic show 

Of age and sacred duties, be 
Thus wise to guide, thus deep to know, 

The artless needs of infancy. 



The The little mothers ! Will they win 

Little The bitter-sweet of elder vears ? 



Mothers. 



Will love protect them from the sin, 

And faith gleam dauntless through the tears ? 

God grant some guerdon for the loss 
Of childly joy : and when they come 

To woman-ways and woman's cross, 
Give them a fate more frolicsome. 

THE PROLOGUE 

Scene, a theatre. The audience is crowding 
its way in ; the play is Dekker* s " The 
Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus" 
ist Spectator. 

HEY ! how they push ! The pit is crowded 
now ; 
A family man must come in season, sooth, 
If he would see the play. On Saturdays 
The folk, work finished, bring their wives and all, 
Hoarding each penny through the thrifty week. 
And look ! an actor comes, 'tis curtain-time. 

zd Spec. Nay, 'tis but Master Prologue, he 
that struts 
About the stage and mouths to please himself, 
Speedily making way for the real stuff, 
The kings and queens and all the quality 
That sit at banquet in the regal hall. 

3d Spec. Thou liest, fool, see where they 
pantomime ; 
There's more than one ; faith, 'tis the very play. 
10 



zd Spec. God's love, it is a zany. Proper The 
plays Prologue. 

Have each their fore-piece ; so it is to-day. 

ist Spec's Wife. Peace, dolt ! They speak; 
only the gallants talk, 
The yeomanry should hearken, look and learn. 

\The play begins without a prologue. 

ist Cobbler i?i audience. How handsomely 
they give the lines. Methinks 
There never was a scene since I was got 
So brave in carriage, nor by half so grand, 
As this of Fortunatus and his purse. 
'Twas well for him he chose the chink of gold 
Afore aught else — as, wisdom, beauty, health. 

zd Cob. I heard but now good Master 
Prentice there 
(Him yonder with his dame) affirm it roundly 
That he had sometime seen this famous piece, 
And how these incidents are all aside 
From the grave acts that make the tragedy, 
The true main action that will come erelong ; 
This a mere farce to make us laugh withal. 
I trow he has it right. 

ist Cob. Th'art drunken, man ; 
The actors swear as though 'twas serious ; 
And mark you that the stage is gallant-full, 
Which would not be unless the act's begun. 



II 



The T>d Cob. Yet, by my awl, 'tis hardly six o' 

Prologue. the c]ock ^ 

And he says true, the fore-piece comes the first ; 
Mayhap it is new-fangled, Spanish, French, 
To speak the prologue by more mouths than one. 
Nay, Hodge is right, 'tis surely not the play. 

2d Cob. Ye silly knaves, I prithee prate no 
more ; 
I know the playhouse, and if this be not 
The prologue, nothing else, I'll buy and burn 
Ten tapers for the church come Candlemas. 

[The play is enacted, and, being finished, 
the people jostle their way out of the pit. 

ist Citizen. 'Twas handsome-done, — but 
still a parlous trick, 
This giving of the plot with ne'er a word 
Of fore-speech, when one looked for something 

such ; 
Though I have heard it said 'tis often so, 
This showing of the play sans anything 
To gloss it. Well, I would that I had known ; 
So would I not have chattered with my mates, 
Thinking the best to come, but bent my mind 
On Fortunatus and his fortunes great. 
I lost full half the lines, by our lady, yes. 
'Twould fetch the tears another time. Ah me, 
Had I but known ! A play's a mocking thing ! 



So is it with us men. We watch the stage, 
And cannot deem that what is playing there 

12 



(Bespite the fuss and fustian and the roars The 

Of laughter that Sir Cap-and-Bells provokes) Prologue. 

Is still the one brief tragedy that we 

Spectators ere shall gaze on ; that the time 

Is only hours few, — one afternoon 

Snatched from a grim eternity of days. 

Secure in a false ease and thinking, fond, 

How 'tis the fore-piece that but ushers in 

The five-act story, — lo ! our life is lived ; 

The lights go down, and we, half blinking still, 

Must elbow out into the night and cold, 

Uncertain whether, as we stumble on, 

Of all the friendly press whose smiles and tears 

Made company about us just before, 

One voice shall hail us, or a fellow hand 

Stretch forth to touch us in the silent dark. 

THE OLD TENOR 

A MONOLOGUE 

DID you say the singing was only fair ? 
Sir, if the chance was given me 
To change from him on the stage up there 
Straight to a spirit symphony — 

Well, it might stagger my poor old brain, 

But I think, on the whole, I back should come 

To hear these worn sweet notes again, 
And see yon form that is cumbersome. 

The why of it all ? It fell, my friend, 
A matter of forty years ago. 

13 



The A certain man was nigh his end, 

Old Lying wracked in a fever glow, 

Tenor. ' 

And a fine young star, in his flush of fame, 
Stept to his bedside, took his hand, 

And strove to kindle life's spent flame 
By singing songs of the lovely land. 

Ah, how he sang ! till the sick man turned 
His face from the wall, and took deep breath, 

And said, as his eyes with new light yearned, 
That life ran sweeter far than death 

If one might hearken to strains like this ; 

And he swore he would live in death's despite. 
Then sleep dropt down on him like a kiss, 

And he woke with his blood all cool and right. 

Perhaps you can fancy who was the man, 
And who is the singer there on the stage, 

And why I listen and sob, and can 

But love his faults and his hints of age. 

Some folks will say, when they pay their coin, 
The perfectest singer is their choice, 

Where youth and art and genius join ; 
But I like a man behind the voice ! 



H 



THE PHANTOM DRUM 

A LEGEND OF CASTINE 

THE old fort stands on the sightly hill 
Engirt by bays and the wide salt sea ; 
Its earthworks soft with the grass a-grow 
And the gold of flowers, its bastions low. 
How tranquil Time doth work his will 
On the stormy heights of history ! 

Of yore the British ensconced them here, 
Old battle dogs in their rig of red ; 
But the Yankees came, and who might cope 
With the men afire with freedom's hope ? 
A vanquished foe, with a victor's cheer 
At their very heels, the red-coats fled. 

In a pit deep dug in mother earth, 

In a transient prison nigh the wall, 

Left behind was a drummer lad ; 

Clean forgotten him they had, 

And his petty fault and his ways of mirth ; 

No comrade stayed for to heed his call. 

Buried alive there, he and his drum ! 
Tireless he beat it, a reveille 
Would wake the dead, but no living wight 
Was near to succor by day or night ; 
He prayed that even the foe might come 
Before he had starved himself away. 



Drum . 



The In vain : when the patriot band marched there 

Phantom j n a f ter Jays, and the rampart scaled, 

They found his drum-head broken through 
With the hapless blows, and the drummer too 
Life-spent ; what once was strong and fair 
Shrunk to a thing whereat men paled. 

'Twas in March it fell : a century's tide 
Flows full between ; but the legend claims, 
Whenever the windy month comes round, 
You shall hear by night as doleful sound 
As ever rose o'er the ocean wide 
Or frightened the children at their games. 

'Tis the phantom drum's tap-tapping drear 
Up in the fort ; for he cannot rest, 
That drummer boy in his dungeon place ; 
You never see him or know his face, 
But the tap-tap-tap comes sharp and clear 
Above the sea, when the wind blows west. 

THE RACE OF THE -BOOMERS" 

THE bleak o' the dawn, and the plain is a- 
smoke with the breath of the frost, 
And the murmur of bearded men is an ominous 
sound in the ear ; 
The white tents liken the ground to a flower- 
meadow embossed 
By the bloom of the daisy sweet, for a sign 
that the June is here. 

16 



'Boomers. 



They are faring from countless camps, afoot or The Race 
ahorse, may be, of the 

' J ' t it Z>~~m 

The blood of many a folk may flow in their 
bounding veins, 
But, stung by the age-old lust for land and for 
liberty, 

They have ridden or run or rolled in the mile- 
engulfing trains. 

More than the love of loot, mightier than wom- 
an's lure, 
The passion that speeds them on, the hope 
that is in their breast : 
They think to possess the soil, to have and to 
hold it sure, 
To make it give forth of fruit in this garden 
wide of the West. 

But see ! It is sun-up now, and six hours hence 
is noon ; 
The crowd grows thick as the dust that murrles 
the roads this way : 
The black-leg stays from his cards, the song-man 
ceases his tune, 
And the gray-haired parson deems it is idle to 
preach and pray. 

Now thirst is a present pain and hunger a coming 
dread, 
Water is dear as gold, as the heat grows fierce 
apace : 

17 



'Boomers. 



The Race Theft is a common deed for the price of a bit of 
#** bread, 

And poison has played its part to sully the 
morning's face. 

And over the mete away the prairie is parched 
and dry, 
A creature of mighty moods, an ocean of move- 
less waves ; 
Clean of a single soul, silent beneath the sky, 
Waiting its peopled towns, with room for a 
host of graves. 

The hours reel on, and tense as a bow-cord 
drawn full taut * 

Is the thought of the Boomers all : a sight that 
is touched with awe ; 
A huddle of men and horse to the frenzy pitch 
upwrought, 
A welter of human-kind in the viewless grip of 
the Law. 

Lo ! women are in the press, by scores they are 
yonder come 
To find a footing in front — ah, how can they 
gain a place ? 
Nay, softly, even here in the rabble are harbored 
some 
Who think of their mothers, wives, who re- 
member a fairer face ; 



18 



For the black mass yawns to let these weak ones The Race 

into the line, °t Boomers '* 

While as many men fall back : 'tis knighthood 

nameless and great, 
Since it means good-by to a claim — yea, the 

end of a dream divine, 
To be lord of the land, and free for to follow a 

larger fate. 

High noon : with a fusillade of guns and a deep, 
hoarse roar, 
With a panting of short, sharp breaths in the 
mad desire to win, 
Over the mystic mark the seething thousands pour, 
As the zenith sun glares down on the rush and 
the demon's din. 

God ! what a race : all life merged in the arrowy 
flight ; 
Trample the brother down, murder, if need 
be so, 
Ride like the wind and reach the Promised Land 
ere night, 
The Strip is open, is ours, to build on, harrow 
and sow. 

There comes a Horror of flame, for look, the 

grass is afire ! 
On, or it licks our feet, on, or it chokes our 

breath ! 
Swift through the cactus fly, swift, for it kindles 

higher ; 

*9 



The Race Home and love and life — or the hell of an 

of*!" awful death. 



<i Boomers. 



So, spent and bruised and scorched, down trails 
thick-strewn with hopes 
A-wreck, did the Boomers race to the place 
they would attain ; 
Seizing it, scot and lot, ringing it round with 
ropes, 
The homes they had straitly won through fire 
and blood and pain. 



While ever up from the earth, or fallen far through 
the air, 
Goes a shuddering ethnic moan, the saddest of 
all sad sounds ; 
The cry of an outraged race that is driven other- 
where, 
The Indian's heart-wrung wail for his hapless 
Hunting Grounds. 

BALLAD OF THE EASTERN WOMAN 

(In Turner's M History of England " is told the story of a 
Mahometan woman who fell in love with an English mer- 
chant, the lather of Thomas a Becket, and followed him all 
the way to England, although she knew but the word London, 
and the word Gilbert, the name of her lover.) 

IT was an eastern woman 
Who hailed from over seas, 
And she met an English merchant, 
And sought his heart to please. 



20 



She met an English merchant Ballad 

All in her native land, °EasUrn 

Who kissed her there and called her fair, Woman 
And plighted her his hand. 

But merchant men are fickle : 

Anon he took him home, 
With cargo heavy-laden ; 

He would no longer roam : 
He left the eastern woman 

To weep if so she would, 
Nor weened to stay another day 

If but the wind held good. 

The eastern woman hoarded 

What moneys to her came ; 
She knew his city, London, 

She knew his Christian name, 
And this was all her knowledge ; 

But with a faith sublime 
She journeyed far by sun and star, 

Nor recked of tide or time. 

O'er half the world she travelled 

Until (for God at 
Had pity on such trusting, 

Had marvel at such love ) 
Unto the isle of England 

She came in her emprise, 
A lonely one whose eastern sun 

Was in her hair and eves. 



21 



Ballad And one bleak day the good folk 

°f the Who thronged upon the street 

Eastern , xr • , -n 

Woman Were stncKen still a moment 

To see a sight full sweet : 
A soft-lipped orient woman 

Repeating o'er and o'er 
Her lover's name and whence he came, — 

Two words, and nothing more. 

But, lo! her Gilbert passing ! 

He meets her face to face 
And all his heart is molten 

Before her hapless grace ; 
A mighty cry she utters, 

And then looks dumbly down. 
Oh, love will lead and give good speed, 

Though strange be tongue and town ! 

So merchant Gilbert took her, 

And swore that she was true, 
And wed the eastern woman 

Ere yet the moon was new. 
And she was well-requited 

For stress by land and sea, 
And lived her life as glad a wife 

As ever did ladye. 



22 



BALLAD OF THE THORNLESS ROSE 

ASSISI town had a garden once 
With roses set of a wondrous kind. 
And Francis, monk, was the gardener 
(The world is still with his name astir) 
To shield them from the wind. 

For they grew and blew in that peaceful spot 

With never a thorn to prick the hand 
Of one that plucked them, — if but he 
Loved Christ and trowed on his sovereignty, 
Or fought with a believing brand. 

But there came a maid of noble race 

Once on a time to the garden fair, 
And saw the monk and loved him well, 
As he loved her, for she drew the spell 
Of her beauty round him there. 

But she was a heathen in her faith, 

And he was a man to Mary vowed ; 
Yet, — fain to show her a tender sign, 
He plucked a rose with a heart like wine 
And gave to this lady proud. 

Whereat she took it with gracious smile, 

And knew that it meant a love untold ; 
Blusht and put it beside her breast 
(A place, I ween, for a rose the best) 
In that garden sweet and old. 



2 3 



Ballad Then she turned away and rode her home : 
°fjj ie But when it was come to harvest-tide 

Rose * ^ ne l° ve d a l° r d of her kin and creed, 
Forgot the monk and his true love deed, 
And soon was a stately bride. 

And, wotting well that it shamed her truth, 
She called a vassal and bade him go 

Back to the monk with the withered rose, 

Back to the empty garden-close 
Wherein no flowers blow. 

And lo ! when Francis unrolled the silk 

That wrapt the flower all bruised and dead, 
And touched the stem, sharp thorns had grown 
About the bloom of that rose alone 
Of all in his garden-bed ! 

Then Francis, monk, said never a word, 
But kissed the petals, and soft at night 
Stole him out to a secret place 
And buried the flower, and hid his face 
In prayer till the morning light. 



'Twas the woman's heathen hand, write some, 
But the peasants have it another way : 

The thorns grew out of her faithless love 

(The same is a sin all sins above) 
And girt the rose that day. 



24 



IRONY 

A LOVER sued for his lady's hand, 
But her heart was stone, and he went his 
way 
And served the flag of his native land 
And fought and wounded fell one day. 

And the tidings came to his lady love 
As a sudden stroke from an open sky ; 

Till she knew she held, all men above, 
Yon stricken one who was like to die. 

So she rose, with the message blindly read, 
And breathed a prayer for a kindly fate ; 

" I will go to him," she palely said, 
(< And tell my love ere it be too late." 

When she reached the field and sought for one 
To say in sooth how her hero fared, 

She deemed her earthly sorrows done, 

And joyed for all she had dreamed and dared, 

For the wound, they said, was healing fast 
And the doubt and danger now were o'er. 

Ah, the woman's tears dropt down at last, 
While her heart kept singing more and more. 

She bent above him as white he lay, 
Nor held it wanting in womanhood 

To bare her soul to his gaze, and say 

The word she felt he would reckon good. 

25 



Irony. But a look of pain to his sick face stole 
And wonder sat on the weary brow, 
As, truth for truth, he told the whole 
Simple story of Then and Now. 

After days of a long despair 

He had found another whose eye confessed 
She held him dear, — and her lock of hair 

Nestled now on his bandaged breast. 

Then the lady rose with the story heard, 
And murmured not at the turn of fate, 

But looked to heaven and spake this word : 
" Even so, I have come too late.'* 

MAD-TOWN 

DID you ever hear of Mad-Town, 
A town I wot of well ? 
How once men called it glad-town, 
And what the folk befell ? 

Of yore, the place was like to other towns, 
Where old and young and seemly men and clowns 
Lived out their lives ; and maidens smiled or 
broke 

Deep hearts, or were bespoke. 
Where tiny children sported midst the downs, 
Weaving of flowers or bringing in the May, 
Merry the live-long day, 
And matrons most demure, with upbound hair, 
Did household tasks and wept betimes for care ; 
26 



While Shrunken- shanks sat still and took their Mad- 
sunning, Town. 

And watched the younkers running. 



Until, one morn, just as the night-lorn East 

Turned into rose that wine sheds at a feast, 
A stranger came, bearing an instrument 

With carvings strange besprent, 
And stood and played : the lordliest and the least 

About the streets, afield, or housed at home 
Stopt, and might not roam. 
Stopt, and light ran over all their faces, 

Yea, blest them in their places. 
And as the minstrel, playing soft and sweet, 

Waxed loving in his work, lo ! many feet 
Kept rhythmic time, and bodies swayed, and hands 
Were claspt for dancing-bands. 

And e'en the little ones, too wee to beat 
The perfect dance-time through its cadences, 

Were rhythmic in their glees ; 
One old man, too, albeit bent with eld, 

Rose up in raptures never to be quelled 
And cast afar his staff, to hobble gayly, 
As he had done it daily. 

The player played right on, tune chasing tune, 
Until the clocks rang out, high noon ! high 
noon ! 
Then sudden vanished, sprang into the air, 

Or sank through earth ere any were aware : 
And oh ! the change, the sorry, woeful swoon 
From joyance that was rife erewhile he went 
27 



Mad- And ceased his blandishment ! 

Town. E ac h face grew stony first, then vacant-eyed, 
And gibberish loud laughter rose and died 
To silence worse, like damned spirits striving 
Against their Fate's contriving. 

And though this happed full many years ago, 
And one might deem they had forgot it so, 
Forgot the minstrel and his coming-time, 

As one forgets a rhyme : 
The good folk of the town forever show 
This strange wild grieving after what is dead 

In what the music said. 
Until men call them mad : they neither reap 
Nor sow, nor buy nor sell, but only sleep ; 
Or, waking, roam with head aside, as trying 

To catch some sound a-dying. 



This is the tale of Mad-Town, 

A town I wot of well ; 
How once men called it glad-town, 

And what the folk befell. 



28 



Melodies of The Months 

MARCH FIELDS 

NOW shrink not from me for shamefacedness, 
O sober fields of March beneath the sky ! 
Your brown and gray, your russet robes, may 

bless 
With deep delight a lover's loyal eye ; 
And lover such and always fain would I 
Be reckoned, who in all my blood to-day, 
Long winter-sluggish, feel a mighty wine, 
The wind of spring that sings along its way, 
And makes a music that is festal-fine. 
O sober fields of March, your mood is deep, 

divine ! 

APRIL 

THE lyric tremor and lift 
Of the renascent earth, 
The teeming birth 
Again, the indescribable gift 
Of Spring, a-throb with everything 
That's wonder-worth. 

Let us have eyes to see 

The new-old miracle! 

If it befell 
We viewed for the first time such wizardry, 
Each budding leaf were past belief, 

Ineffable. 



29 



April, But custom films our eyes 

Unto the marvellous sight, 
And April bright 
Is not a magic-maiden from the skies, 
But an earth-girl of pout and curl 
And manner light. 

Ah, no! not so : 
She is God's daughter, and her airiest mood 
Is deep with Love and wise with ancient 
Good. 



MAY-LURE 

HOW the heart pulls at its tether 
In the magic warm spring weather! 
How the blood leaps in its courses 
When the deep ebullient forces 
Break the bosom brown of earth! 

It is worth 
All a man can scrape or squander 
Just to idle, just to wander 
Forth from trade, away from duty, 
Revelling in all the beauty 
And the glamour of the May. 

Who to-day 
Cares a fig for any other 

Thought save this : The earth, great mother, 
Has turned kind, has banished gloom and dole ; 
Music, that audient outlet for the soul, 
Comes in, and grief goes out, and Life is whole. 
3° 



JUNE 

JUNE in the grass! 
Daisies and buttercups, lo, they surpass 
Coined gold of kings ; and for greendom, the 
rose, 
Bloom of the month, see how stately she goes ; 
Blow, winds, and waft me the breathings of 
flowers : 

June's in her bowers. 

June overhead! 
All the birds know it, for swift they have sped 
Northward, and now they are singing like mad ; 
June is full-tide for them, June makes them glad. 
Hark, the bright choruses greeting the day — 

Sorrow, away ! 

June in the heart ! 
Dormant dim dreamings awake and upstart, 
Blood courses quicker, some sprite in my feet 
Makes rhythm of motion, makes wayfaring sweet ; 
So, outward or inward, the meaning is clear ; 

Summer is here. 



HAYING 

A RUSTIC idyl of the ardent days 
In middle summer. When the sun is new 
The scythes go swishing all the wet grass through, 

Making a music down the meadow ways ; 
And as the noon draws on, in fields ablaze 
3« 



Haying. With heat, the rows are gathered trig and true, 
To simmer there beneath the cloudless blue, 

And spill keen fragrance. In the twilight haze, 
Behold ! the high-piled wain along the road 

Creaks cumbrously, the hayers spent and brown 
Seated a-top ; — so huge their precious load 

They brush the bushes, well-nigh topple down ; 
The field stands stript ; — a gust of evening rain, 

And all its face is odorous again. 



32 



Bird Notes 

THE LARK 

I STOOD knee-deep within a field of grain, 
And felt a sudden flash of facile wings 
That off the ground rose straight into the blue. 
And looking, saw it was the lark, a wight 
In all my days I had not glimpsed at home, 
And now must find beyond the foam-white seas 
For the first time. This child of ecstasy 
Shook down roulades of song, and clove the air 
Up, up and ever up towards very heaven, 
A speck of buoyant life against the sky, 
And bird-kind's one embodiment of soul 
In God-aspiring flight. Across my mind 
Rushed Shakespeare's hymn and Shelley's heav- 
enly lay, 
Wherein this bird, etherealized, becomes 
More beautiful, and less of mortal mould ; 
Until half-dazed I stood, nor hardly knew 
Whether I heard the descant of the lark, 
Or those dear singers of the human race 
Make subtle music for my brooding ear. 

THE CAT-BIRD 

A SKULKER in a thicket, loud and harsh 
His note, his message so unbeautiful 
It does belie his bird shape, cheat the sense. 
But hark ! All suddenly a wondrous lay 



33 



The Cat- And from the self-same throat. *Tis now a 

Bird ' thrush 

Uttering its nunlike spirit on the air ; 
And now a robin, cheery-sweet and plumed 
For morning minstrelsy that wakes the day ; 
And now a mingled rapture of them both 
With Somewhat superadded. A strange bird, 
Yet in his fashion not unlike to man, 
Who often hides a music-potent soul 
Under some uncouth semblance of a song 
That strikes the ear but lamely, — till some stress 
Of life, some lyric impulse, bids him break 
His custom, and the world is blessedly 
Enthralled, the melody is so divine. 

THE MEISTERSINGER 

THE magic moment of the eve has come, 
When keen behind the hill the after-glow 
Makes gold and flame of heaven, too soon to 

change 
To mother-of-pearl ; and hark ! the hid thrush 

sings 
His master-song, wee Walter of the wood, 
So silvery and sweet that one is sure 
He'll win his Eva, put to shame for aye 
All rivals, prove himself a knight indeed 
At minstrelsy, and live by music's might 
So long as men have ears and Time a tongue. 



34 



THE HUMMING-BIRD 

IS it a monster bee, 
Or is it a midget bird, 
Or yet an air-born mystery 

That now yon marigold has stirred, 
And now on vocal wing 

To a neighbor bloom is whirred, 
In an aery ecstasy, in a passion of pilfering ? 

Ah ! 'tis the humming-bird, 

Rich-coated one, 

Ruby-throated one, 
That is not chosen for song, 
But throws its whole rapt sprite 

Into the secrets of flowers 
The summer days along, 

Into most odorous hours, 
Into a murmurous sound of wings too swift for 

sight ! 

THE BLUEBIRD 

IN the very spring, 
Nay, in the bluster of March, or haply 
before, 
The bluebird comes, and, a-wing 
Or alight, seems evermore 
For song that is sweet and soft. 

His footprints oft 
Make fretwork along the snow 
When the weather is bleak ablow, 
When his hardihood by cold is pinched full sore. 

35 



The Then deep in the fall, 

Bluebird. j n ^ I nc ]i an _ summer while, in the dreamy days, 
When the errant songsters all 
Grow slack in songful ways, 
You may hear his warble still 

By field or hill ; 
Until, with an azure rush 
Of motion, music — hush ! 
He is off, he is mutely whelmed in the southern 
haze ! 



THE GROUND-ROBIN 

FROM a low birch-tree just outside my win- 
dow, 
Here in the wind-fresh green New Hampshire 

country, 
All through the day, and even at the nightfall, 
Cheery, distinct, his heart a home for hope, 
His throat full swollen with desire of music, 
A little ground-robin sits and sings, 
Symbol of summer, neighbor dear to me. 

I never hear his note in other places ; 
But when June comes, and I return to live 
Among the birches and memorial pines, 
Lo, faithful to the tryst, alert and buoyant, 
His strain familiar greets my welcoming soul, 
And seems the type of all time-keeping things, 
Rebuking chance and change. Illusion sweet 
Uprises with the sound : of all the birds 

36 



I know, this songster speaks most plain to me, The 

Making impermanence a very myth. Ground- 

Robiti . 

So carol on, ground-robin ! each green year 

I listen for you, and 'twould be a grief 

Beyond mere words, some June, some fragrant 

morrow, 
To sit and hearken by the open window 
In vain ; for in a flood of fond regret 
Would come a sense of loss, of unrequited 
Love, of faith broken at length, of fickle 
Friendship, and joy too beautiful to last : 
Sing on, ground-robin, sing ! 

FROM THE GRASS 

NOW, for a moment, all is well : 
The eye looks out on lovely things — 
Midsummer's facile miracle 
Of sky and field and bird-swift wings. 

Hush, heart, deep fellow feeling all 
The world-pain ; haply this may be 
A symbol of some good to fall, 
Come homing-time, for me and thee. 

The old illusion ? Nature's art 
To cozen us of Life's keen smart ? 
Nay, life is love ; love lasts, O heart. 



37 



LOVE IS STRONG 

A VIEWLESS thing is the wind, 
But its strength is mightier far 
Than a phalanxed host in battle line, 
Than the limbs of a Samson are. 

And a viewless thing is Love, 

And a name that vanisheth ; 
But her strength is the wind's wild strength above, 

For she conquers shame and Death. 

CLAIRVOYANCE 

THE worldling sat and cursed his empty fate, 
His haggard, hopeless days, the cruelty 
Practised upon his feDow-men by powers 
Pitiless, inscrutable. And then he turned 
And saw beside him sit the quiet nun 
In garb of meek-worn black touched soft with 

white 
About the neck, and from a purple string 
Pendent the Christ upon a cross of bronze. 
His fevered pulses cooled and calmed before 
Those faithful eyes, the peace across the brow, 
The pallor of long vigils and the joy 
Of sacrifice, that made a lambency 
Of the plain features. 

Of a sudden then 
He knew his vision blurred, his bitterness 
Misuse of dear-worth hours ; what he called sight, 
Purblindness of the flesh, now he beheld 
The crystal-clear clairvoyance of the Pure. 

38 



MY UPPER SHELVES 

CLOSE at my feet in stolid rows they sit, 
The grave great tomes that furnish forth my 
wit ; 
Like reverend oaks they are of Academe, 
Within whose shade broods science, thought- 

adream. 
I honor them and hearken to their lore, 
And with a formal fondness view them o'er; 
As ever with the wise, they have the floor ! 

Bat high on top, all other books above, 

The precious pocket volumes that I love 

Forgather, in a Friends' Society 

Whose silences are pregnant unto me. 

The poets be there, companions tried and true 

On many a walk, for many a fireside brew ; 

The golden lays of Greece, the grace urbane 

Of Roman Horace ; or some later strain 

From lyre Elizabethan, passion-strong ; 

From minnesinger or from master-song ; 

And down the tuneful choirs of nearer days, 

The chants of Hugo, or the soulful praise 

Of Wordsworth, tranced among his native fells ; 

The orphic art of Emerson ; the wail 

Of Heine, ever slave to Beauty's spells ; 

The voice of Tennyson in many a musing tale. 

These and their fellows poise above my head, 

And at their beck imperious I am led 

Through all delights of living and of dead. 



39 



My Upper Less weighty, say you ? All aerial things 
Shelves. T nat fl oat on fancies or that fly on wings 

Are small of bulk, and hence soar heaven-high ; 
They have all manner of wild sweet escapes 
From bonds of earth, and so they do not die 
As die these grosser, more imprisoned shapes. 
My upper shelves uphc d a mystic crowd, 
Whose lightest word, though scarcely breathed 

aloud, 
Will all outweigh a million folios 
That groan with wisdom and with scholar-woes, 
So long as love is love and blooms a sole red rose ! 

CONTRASTS 

STRANGE, that we creatures of the petty 
ways, 

Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, 
Can sometimes think us thoughts with God 
ablaze, 
Touching the fringes of the outer stars. 

And stranger still that, having flown so high 
And stood unshamed in shining presences, 

We can resume our smallness, nor imply 
In mien or gesture what that memory is. 

DAY AND NIGHT MUSIC 

THE multitudinous murmurings of Day ! 
The jocund motions that are in the trees, 
The flecks of sunshine tossing in the breeze, 
The meadow music that is miles away, 
40 



The volant birds that cannot stay from song, Day and 

The sound of woods and waters, spirits strong, — ^/ ht 

These, all of these, 
Are of the light, and to the Day belong. 

Nor less, the populous breathings of the Night : 
The vast and vocal rhythms far and near 
Of the cicadas, and the tree-toads' clear 
Exalted answer from their leafy height ; 
The bats that haunt the air with dusky whir, 
The myriad nameless things that are astir, — 

These all appear 
As myrmidons of Night and parts of her. 

CLOWN AND KING 

HOOP-LA, hey ! cried the clown in the ring, 
(Weep, weep, said his heart). 
Alack a-day ! sighed the stately king, 
(Leap, leap, said his heart). 

The clown's dear daughter lay a-dying, 
And so his painted face was trying 
To veil an anguished mind. 

The king's chief rival lay a-dying ; 
His grief was mock, for he was trying 
To make the big world blind. 

Whene'er I fear there is no God, 
But blindest force in star and sod, 

A whisper says : There must be One 

To read beneath what things are done 
And grasp the doer's will ; 

4 1 



Clown The clown's wrung heart, 

and King. The king > s cold ^ 

Life's woven good-and-ill. 

OF MUSIC 

THE miner delves in caverns of the earth 
Away from God's dear light, from everything 
That breedeth joy and hope and wholesome mirth. 
Ah, heaven, how fair the change, how good 
to spring 
Into the open, after dark and dearth ! 

The sailor gasps upon a sullen sea, 

Shipwrecked, half mad for water, dying there ; 
Yet all the brine is but a mockery, 

And devils leer along the burning air. 
Then, rain ! how all-divine that drink must be ! 

One, a world wanderer, drifts from strand to strand 
For heedless years, — but then is fain to roam 

No more ; he longs to clasp some kinsman's hand, 
To sleep in sacred chambers of his home. 

How blest the day he hails the loved, lost land ! 

But neither light, nor drink, nor home ways stir 
Such rare delight, such infinite keen bliss 

In them, as comes to me, a worshipper 
Of music, when I hear it yearn and kiss : 

Life thrills, grows luminous-large, smells sweet 
with balm and myrrh. 

42 



GREAT AND SMALL 

THE highest hills 
Are wrinkles in Time's transitory dust ; 
The tiniest rills 

Are seas at birth that mould the earth's huge crust; 
There is nor great nor small, — our fumbling eyes 
Confuse the Essence with mere shape and size. 

ANTICLIMAX 

I WALKED a city street, and suddenly 
I saw a tiny lad. The winter wind 
Howled fitfully, and all the air above 
The clear-cut outline of the buildings tall 
Seemed full of knives that cut against the face : 
An awful night among the unhoused poor ! 
The boy was tattered ; both his hands were thrust 
For show of warmth within his pocket-holes, 
Where pockets had not been for many a day. 
One trouser-leg was long enough to hide 
The naked flesh, but one, in mockery 
A world too short, though he was monstrous small, 
Left bare and red his knee — a cruel thing ! 
Then swelled my selfish heart with tenderness 
And pity for the waif: to think of one 
So young, so seeming helpless, homeless too, 
Breasting the night, a-shiver with the cold ! 
Gaining a little, soon I passed him by, 
My fingers reaching for a silver coin 
To make him happier, if only for 
An hour, when — I marvelled as I heard — 
His mouth was puckered up in cheery wise, 

43 



Anti- And in the very teeth of fortune's frown 
climax. pj e w histled loud a scrap of some gay tune ! 
And I must know that all my ready tears 
Fell on a mood more merry than mine own. 

PERSONIFICATION 

MAKE Him a name, a something vague, 
enskied, 
You win cool heads, perchance, to cool 
assent ; 
Make Him a babe unwitting, open-eyed, 
All mother hearts enclasp the Innocent ; 
Make Him a man, careworn and crucified, 
And straight men love Him, knowing what is 
meant. 

WINTER TWILIGHT 

A LITTLE while ago and you might see 
The ebon trees against the saffron sky 
That shifts through flame to rose ; but now a calm 
Of solemn blue above, a stilly time, 
With pines that peer and listen, while the snow 
Gleams ghostly and the brittle sound of ice 
Tinkles along the dumbness, strangely loud, 
Since all the air is tranced. Housed-in, the folk 
Close-gather at the ingle, and the hour 
Of fireside cheer and homely talk of kin 
Is welcomed, as the big, vague world beyond 
Moves nightward, merges into mystery. 



44 



THE RURAL PIPE 

(the rustic poet soliloquizes) 

NAY, chide me not because my pipe oft sings 
Of country doings and of common things : 

Of sun-steeped fields where men forestall the day 
To gather up in mows the winter's hay ; 

Of kine called musically at the bars, 

And swaying home beneath the early stars ; 

Of woods divinely cool, where moss and fern 
Do haunt the pleasant places of the burn ; 

Of berry pickings, and of harvest fun 

Beneath the moon when day-work all is done ; 

Of fall forgatherings, when nuts are thick, 
And boys beat out the burrs with lusty stick ; 

Of storm-bound labors and of snowings-in, 
When water lacks, and low is every bin ; 

Of cutting ice upon the waveless lake, 
Where skaters whirl and frosty music make ; 

Of these, and more, the happenings manifold, 
Whereby the countryside's full tale is told. 

Nay, chide me not, for these are things I see 
And know and love — the very heart of me. 

So did Theocritus, and still we hear 
His airs Sicilian and his message clear. 
45 



THI THE ROOF 


T ^NDER tke ea 


• -:.- , nt :i.i: I .:-.-- 


■ - :\: i r.vn. 


-•V:- ;;.;;:.:•:,: 


--: T_r_r *_--: .--.:.-: l:«: t. 


.-.-i -_-.; ii - :• 


t :.:: -V— ; 


T: tir. -t -:, ■ 


:_-. - iM _r-.i: .'. :_-.t. 






T: heat ■'ahead m i nenmm r_r>i 


Hcboi 


-_- 1 -:.;:" 






I en five a wbol 


= _:"t ::-: _r :. 


la ttnnatkv, 


L* _ ~ : * . l~~ " r .- :':: 


_ ■ t r * .'. \ l'. t : * t " " : 


Alii the COB mil 


.: ::••_-; ■■■:*■.■ f »_: 


Sen di far bj »k behoof; 


Aad ;: ■dha mr h 


-,,-. ;•; -«.- : :" i :;_;. 


T-t -.-. :-. 


■_*.: -:•::". 



And a comrade whose wit k bat. 
So I see bat the fiar, smooth fece of life. 

As I fie aad Est to ike wind's wid strife. 
.-■;":::. tr.t r;.::'. 




Though the warp be sombre that binds me round, The Rain 

Yet a sweet and shining woof °* ^ e 

Is woven in with that winsome sound, '' 

The rain on the roof. 

A MYSTERY 

WHY should a fir-tree stark against the sky 
Arouse old thoughts and times of long ago ; 
Yea, blind with tears a careless passing eye 

That chancewise looks for signs of rain or snow ? 
I do not kn j 

I only feel that any joy or pain 

May live afresh in any sight I see, 
By field or nook, by path or windy plain. 

And so the world a wonder is to me, 
A mystery. 

TO A MOUNTAIN BROOK 

BEAUTY and health do companion thee, 
friend, 
Boons evanescent and rare ; 
Daytime and night-tide in loveliness bend 
Over thy flight that is fair. 

Rarer boon still : It is given to thee — 

Far from the fret that is mine — 
To hark thine own music, and know it to be 

Born of an impulse divine. 



47 



DEMOCRACY 

KINGDOMS and crowns have been from 
storied years ; 
But older, sager, that Democracy 
As wide as life, as sure as human tears 

And smiles, that ever is and e'er must he. 

Our great Republic of the common woe, 

The common joy ; no marks nor metes of man 

Confine its borders, and no rivers flow 
Splitting its people into tribe and clan. 

One nation, breathing in the selfsame air, 
All freedmen in the privilege of pain ; 

Each soul holds franchise in the right to dare 
The altitudes, to fall, and dare again. 

LYRIC AND EPIC 

A LITTLE lyric the sunset gleamed 
At eve, a heart-song warm with love, 
Light-drenched gold, and a pink that dreamed ; 

Shot with life and the sweet thereof, 
Yet inly, deeply calm it seemed. 

At morn an epic filled the eye, 

Moving grand with a hero's gait ; 
Rain that raged in a wide, gray sky, 

Winds that moaned disconsolate, 
An elemental clash and cry. 



4 8 



ON A FERRY-BOAT 

THE river widens to a pathless sea 
Beneath the rain and mist and sullen skies. 
Look out the window ; 'tis a gray emprise, 
This piloting of massed humanity 

Onsuch a day, from shore to busy shore, 
And breeds the thought that beauty is no more. 

But see yon woman in the cabin seat, 

The Southland in her face and foreign dress ; 
She bends above a babe, with tenderness 
That mothers use ; her mouth grows soft and 
sweet. 
Then, lifting eyes, ye saints in heaven, what 

pain 
In that strange look of hers into the rain ! 

There lies a vivid band of scarlet red 

With careless grace across her raven hair ; 

Her cheek burns brown ; and 'tis her way to 
wear 
A gown where colors stand in satin's stead. 

Her eye gleams dark as any you may see 

Along the winding roads of Italy. 

What dreamings must be hers of sunny climes, 
This beggar woman midst the draggled throng ! 
How must she pine for solaces of song, 

For warmth and love to furnish laughing-times ! 
Her every glance upon the waters gray 
Is piteous with some lost yesterday. 

49 



Boat. 



On a I've seen a dove, storm-beaten, far at sea ; 

Ferry- ^nd once a flower growing stark alone 

From out a rock ; Pve heard a hound make 
moan 
Left masterless : but never came to me 
Ere this such sense of creatures torn apart 
From all that fondles life and feeds the heart. 

RECOLLECTIONS 

I SEE a lad deserted by his mates, 
Because his ways were little to their mind, 
Turn sick at heart, shed tears to make him 
blind ; 
So sad, that never have the after-fates 
Brought pain that pinched more close, a day more 

dark, 
Though manv since have sullen been and stark ; 
And yet we call our childhood soft and kind ! 

Again I see him, stretched along the floor, 

Reading with bated breath and blue eyes keen 
Of her the mystic maiden called Undine ; 

Of how she won a knight beside the shore, 

With looks that stirred his heart to nameless fears. 

The reader burst into a storm of tears 

That day she sank beneath the waters green. 

Now, older grown, but still a very lad, 

He stands beside a woman, strokes her hair 
And touches timidly the love-locks there, 

Laying his soul before her beauty glad, 

50 



Though she be twice his years. He draws his Recoliec- 
breath tions - 

More worshipfully than to his hour of death 
He will again — a lad's first love is fair! 

One night, he lies abed in wakefulness, 

The while his mother plays and sings below 
Some dim sweet melody of long ago, 

And sad withal, beyond his saddest guess ; 

Until the childish heart swells big with pain. 

Through all the years it sounds for him again, 
That mother's voice, that music sobbing so ! 

And last, one day stands out from those gone by, 

And those that followed, as a single tree 

Stands out, a creature lonesome utterly, 
Upon a desert 'gainst a flaming sky. 
'Twas when his father died ; he made no sound, 
But in a secret place upon the ground 

They found him — dazed and dumb that such 
could be. 

Ah, recollections, how ye throng and set 
Time's dial back, until the by-gones teem 
With potent doings ! How the child-days seem 

As dewy as a spring-time violet, 

Sad as the flower, too, when night-tide comes, 

Yet sweet with all the sweets her bosom sums ; 
Yea, bitter sweet — a message and a dream ! 



5* 



AS A VIOLINIST 

AS a violinist bends a loving face 
Down to his fiddle, down to the singing 
bow, 
So the poet bends down his soul to Beauty's place 
For to hear her voice, and her very heart to know. 
As the player looks aloft and thrills the strings, 
So the poet looks to God, and yearns and sings. 

TRAGI-COMEDY 

I SIT a mute spectator in the pit, 
And watch the tragi-comedy of Life : 
The buffoon's laughter, and the flash of wit, 
The love that leavens, and the assassin's knife. 

And just because an act is yet to come 

(The fifth, that evens all, and dries our tears), 

My foolish thoughts are dark and troublesome, 
And over-sad the tangled plot appears. 

But if I still remain, as others do, 

Trusting the playwright, sitting with my 
friends, 
Methinks the story will prove sweet and true, 

And I shall read its meaning as it ends. 

THE MARSH FLOWER 

DOWN in a marsh by the water's brink 
I found a bloom of the palest pink ; 
And I watched it oft and loved it well, 
For it touched my heart with a mystic spell. 
52 



Till at last I plucked the flower fair The 

And bore it home, and summoned there Marsh 

. r . , . . Flower. 

A friend, to give me its proper name, 

Its habitat and its right to fame. 

And he told me then. But it sounded harsh ; 
In my ignorance by the lonesome marsh 
I had called \x.Child-of-my-Soul, and smiled 
To think of its beauty growing wild. 

And he told me more ; but every word 
Was wisdom such as I wished unheard. 
And lo ! when the story all was said, 
The bloom in my hand lay shrunk and dead. 

SAINTHOOD 

AN angel came and plead with tuneful voice 
Before a maiden fair in youth's demesne : 
"Now, daughter, seize the right and make your 
choice 
Of God forever, spotless to be seen. 

M So shall you live your life, and die in peace, 
And as the years flit by in noiseless flight, 

You shall be sainted, and your name increase, 
Your deeds be inspirations day and night." 

The maiden kneeled, awe written on her face, 
And said : M Ah, holy spirit, how can I 

That am not fair, that have no touch of grace, 
That am as other maidens dwelling by, 

53 



SaintJiood. << Be like to those great pictures that I see 

Of saints long worshipped, wrapt in sinless rest ? 
Dear angel, surely such is far from me ; 

Dear angel, show me how I may be blest." 

Then smiled the spirit : " Daughter, trust my 
word ; 

You cannot see how such a sainthood came. 
Nor can you measure how men's souls are stirred, 

Nor how old Time makes magic of a name. 

" Live out your maiden life, I tell you now, 
And it will all suffice, great deeds apart : 

For just a smile and just a tender brow 

Are sainted by the hungry, human heart." 



AN AUTUMN IMPRESSION 

A FROST came over night. Then all the day 
The leaves fell groundward, fluttered down 
in shoals, 
With sound of sober music, from the trees, 
Until foot-farers ploughed through russet waves 
That rustled crisply, fresh with scents of earth ; 
All day the air was yellow with the flight. 
The sun at noon was mystic-large and seemed 
To faint in smoke, — but when it sank and set 
It left the West a miracle, a place 
Where sombre autumn tints waked suddenly 
Into an ecstasy of vivid lights 
And trembling fires, that passed to mortal calms. 

54 



Then came the eve and with her lovely eyes An 

Soothed all the sunset passion, made the skv Autumn 

. , r . . i , r * Impression, 

A haunt for spirits and a home for stars. r 

CHARITY 

PORTIA with silver tongue hath spoken of 
The quality of mercy, long ago ; 
There is no human thing more deep than love ; 
Ask any soul and it shall tell you so. 

And Paul, large-hearted, spake with golden words 
And said the same, foreseeing days to be, 
His speech more sweet than any sound of birds : 
94 The greatest of these all is Charity.' ' 

STREAM AND SINGER 

THE stream has a steady voice, 
And some will listen and say : 
"Ah ! look how her waves rejoice, 
A-leap through the night and day." 
But bend you close, if you may, 
And soon you will feel and know 
How her cry is a sorrow-throe 
That yearns for the far away. 

The singer is glad betimes, 
But his under-thought is a tear. 
He will ripple along in rhymes 
That speak of the springing year ; 
But stand you beside, and hear 
The beat of his heart, and soon 

55 



Stream There will sound a sob in the tune 

a " d That is full of the dim and dear. 

Singer, 

But the sorrow is ne'er for naught 
Of the stream and the poet's cry, 
For they tell of a treasure sought, 
And they moan that it is not nigh ; 
Till the folk who are passing by 
Are moved with a deep desire 
To strive and to still aspire, 
Though the dawns and the day-tides die. 



CRICKETS 

I HEARD the crickets on the summer hills, 
The wights whose shrill and intermittent voice, 
In multitudinous chorus, makes the day 
Seem interplight with ceaseless sound, the night 
A sleep-begetting time, because their cry 
Is constant still. And then I thought, how soon 
The autumn's breath would blow and blight their 

cheer, 
And sift above the grass the heartless snow 
Of winter, while the bleak wind howled a jest 
Above those minstrels buried in their prime. 
And then I longed to know if, one and all, 
These little bards, so strenuous in their chant, 
Could look beyond December e'en to May, 
E'en to another year at summer-tide, 
When once again the hills should vocal be 



56 



■■ \ 



With their swart brotherhood — could compass this Crickets. 
Prophetic hope, and so take heart of grace 
To shrill and fill the air and pleasure me, 
Until I loved them and their quest of song. 

SEA WITCHERY 

YON headland, with the twinkling footed sea 
Beyond it, conjures shapes and stories fair 
Of young Greek days : the lithe immortal air 
Carries the sound of Siren-song to me ; 
Soon shall I mark Ulysses daringly 
Swing round the cape, the sea-wind in his hair : 
And look ! The Argonauts go sailing there 
A golden quest, shouting their god-like glee. 
The vision is compact of blue and gold, 
Of sky and water, and the drift of foam, 
And thrill of brine-washed breezes from the west : 
Wide space is in it, and the unexpressed 
Great heart of Nature, and the magic old 
Of legend, and the white ships coming home. 

IN A LIBRARY 

A WEALTH of silence, that is all. The air 
Lacks life and holds no hint of tender spring, 
Of flowers wholesome-blowing, birds a-wing, 
Of any creature much alive and fair. 
Perchance you guess a murmur here and there 
Among the tomes, each book a gossip thing, 
And each in her own tongue — yet slumbering 
Seems more the bookish fashion everywhere. 

57 



In a But ah, could but the souls take flesh again 

Library. That wrought these words, their hearts all passion- 
swirled, 
What companies would flock and fill the stage, 
Resuming now their old imperious reign ! 
Knight, noble lady, priest, the saint and sage, 
The valor, bloom, and wisdom of a world. 

BROOKLYN BRIDGE 

I READ of marvels in removed lands, 
Of old fabricians deft, of structures vast : 
The world knew seven wonders in the past, 
And all upreared by cunning mortal hands. 
But he who on this mighty creature stands 

And sees the sun strike spire and dome and mast, 
Awe-struck, must say : This shall them all out- 
last, 
Imperishable above time's shifting sands. 

But nay, all works of human-kind wax old, 
And e'en the stars we call eternal shine 

Less strong and die ; men pass beneath the sod ; 
All things are transient as the joys of wine ; 

Save that through all, the drifting years behold 
One changeless purpose in the mind of God. 

A PALIMPSEST 

I GAZE along the frore, dim fields, and, lo ! 
By dint of gazing, or by witchery 
Beyond my ken, I sudden seem to see 
The Summer, odorous, warm, and all aglow 
With bounties of the earth, with skies that glow 

58 



In beauty with the day. There floats to me A 

The tinkle of the sheep-bells on the lea, Palimpsest. 

The plaining of the brook, the tree-tops' low 
And sibilant song. The Winter is effaced, — 

That was the writing of a later hand, 
A gloomy screed ; and now mine eyes have traced 

The early, joyous message of the land 
When life was rife with roses east and west — 
Have read the secret of God's palimpsest. 

FROM A CITY WINDOW 

AFTER a breathing space in quiet nooks, 
Sweet days of fellowship with Spring and 

Sun, 
Midst buds half blown, midst bird songs just begun, 
Midst greening meadows and rain-swollen brooks, 
How soiled and roiled the seething city looks ! — 
Its roar of trade, its feverish tides that run 
Through channels choked, — its legends, one by 

one, 
Of fates more strange than those in wonder-books ! 

And yet I feel a throb exultant, strong, 
About to breast this hoarse, tumultuous sea : 
"Ah, here is Life," I say beneath my breath ; 
" Here all ambitions jostle fitfully, 
Here saints and sinners mingle, sob and song, 
While far removed seems any thought of Death.' ' 



59 



REMEMBERED SONGS 

I WALKED an autumn lane, and ne'er a tune 
Besieged mine ear from hedge or ground or 
tree ; 
The summer minstrels all had fared from me 
Far Southward, since the snows must flock so soon. 
And yet the air seemed vibrant with the croon 
Of unseen birds and words of Maytide glee : 
The very silence was a melody 
Sown thick with memoried cadences of June. 

Shall we not hold that when our little day 
Is done, and we are seen of men no more, 
We still live on in some such subtile way, 
To make some silence vocal by some shore 
Of Recollection, or to inly play 
Soft songs on hearts that loved us, long before ? 

COLUMBUS 

I SEE a caravel of Spanish make 
That westward like a winged creature flies 
Above a sea dawn-bright, and arched with skies 
Expectant of the sun and morning-break. 
The sailors from the deck their land -thirst slake 
With peering o'er the waves, until their eyes 
Discern a coast that faint and dream-like lies, 
The while they pray, weep, laugh, — or madly 

take 
Their shipmates in their arms and speak no word. 



60 



And then I see a figure, tall, removed Columbus* 

A little from the others, as behooved, 

That since the dawn has neither spoke nor stirred ; 

A noble form the looming mast beside, 

Columbus, calm, his prescience verified. 

BEAUTY STILL WAITS 

THE blent delight of summer ! Far and faint 
The hills, hard by the hayfield's fragrancy, 
And yonder bosky thicket whence to me 
Floated last night the thrush's mellow plaint, 
Fit sound to woo the moon. No cloud-flecks 

taint 
The crystal sky that is so calm to see ; 
The hey-day of the birds is come, the glee 
Of brooks is heard ; each tree stands like a saint 
In chastened meditation. When the bard 
Birth-claimed of seven cities oped his eyes 
(Not blind as yet) upon a world more young, 
Naught was more lovely. Here in fairest guise 
Beauty still waits upon the golden tongue 
To show her forth, for man's most fond regard. 

THE SOUL'S HOURS 

BETIMES I steal to some sequestered place, 
Some seldom-travelled spot by wood or lane, 
Or where the waters lift and lapse again 
At the moon's summons. There I turn my face 
Up to the sun or stars, while visions trace 



61 



The Their fawn-fleet way within my brooding brain, 

SouPs ^nd m y siek sou ] th a t dormant long has lain 

Takes deep delight in winds, and ample space. 
Men deem me drowsed in slothful revery : 
Not so : these be the sane and sacred hours 
When most I feel Life's duty, joy, and loss. 
Joy, for I rest amid unsullied flowers, 
Duty as well, for in the heavens I see 
Some cloud-formed adumbration of a Cross. 

ACROSS THE INTERVALE 

ALONG Life's lowlands, petty men 
Mix in a crowd with thoughts earth-tied 
And sympathies too narrow-eyed 
To peer beyond their little Then. 
They walk their ways, all unaware 
Of folk-moots in the upper air. 

But, few and far between, arise 
Great souls who overtop the small 
And local, who have range of all 
The inspirations of the skies ; 
Then each to each they cry Good hail. 
Like peaks across an intervale. 

HARMONY 

A STILL, ineffable harmony 
Unites to-day the land and sea ; 
Their colors blend, their mood is one, 
Upon them both the morning sun 
Makes magic, potent-strong to me. 
62 



May Life, that soon is overpast, Harmony, 

Merge in Eternity's dim Vast 

With this same harmony, this sense 

Of beauty under difference ; 
This brotherhood of First and Last. 

A PRAYER 

u In that day when I make up My jewels." 

IN that fair day and dawn divine 
That sees Thy crown complete, 
When radiant ones around Thee shine, 
And angels kiss Thy feet, 

Dear Lord, may she, my little one, 

Among Thy jewels be : 
Not flashing like a central sun, 

Not bold in brilliancy ; 

But white, and modest, as beseems 

A meek and simple girl — 
For I behold her in my dreams 

A small yet perfect pearl. 

IN THE EAST 

YOU say the foliage is rich and strange, 
The houses quaint, the palms and temple-domes 
Bespeak another world — another range 

Of hopes and fears within these Orient homes. 

And yet, I swear, the thought that pierces me 

Is not the new, the unfamiliar look ; 
But rather do I marvel it can be 

So like the homeland that we have forsook. 

63 



1 



//; the For over all the sky is calm and gray, 
East. ^ n id. t i me friend ; and all the men I meet 

Look forth from human eyes, and seem to say 
Hail, brother ! as they pass along the street. 

DISSONANCES 

OFT in the midst of music rare 
Comes a break in the fluent air ; 

Seeming dissonances creep 

Into the chords once tender, deep. 

But, as the deft musician plays 
On to the end, the music strays 

Back to harmonies that are meet, 
Making the whole a thing more sweet. 

So, from the strings of the harp of life 
Notes may be struck with discord rife ; 

But when the air is played, you see 
They were a part of the melody. 

BETWEEN THE SUNS 

NGLOOMED between the cosmic flare of 






t suns, 

There are vast spaces, cold and pitiless, 
Where nothing save an awful atom-dance 
Bespeaks of life. Yet will that taper wee, 

6 4 



That peering little light called Faith, essay Between 

To pierce this night of eons, and declare ^ e Suns. 

Each atom, every inch of whirling void, 
Vital, yea, kind and luminous with God. 

THE PINES 

THE pines are solemn souls, now brooding o'er 
Their reverend past ; now filled with bodeful 
dreams 
Of their dim future, with its sorry change 
From long-while sequestration (peering up 
Into a sky of peace, and rooted fast 
In mother earth) to restless voyaging, 
To dumb unease above the shifty sea, 
As masts that men have fashioned ; to a fate 
That bids them wander, ne'er to find a home. 

MY POETS 

I SAW them in my dreams, — a goodly band 
With lyre of gracious make within each hand, 
A laurel wreath upon each shining head, 
All young as youth and all fair-garmented. 

They swept the strings beside a magic sea 

That ever beat its waves in melody 

Upon a shore where blooms immortal sprang 
Between their feet, for solace while they sang. 

I waked, and saw them in the light of day : 
A motley crowd, for some were bent and gray, 
And some clothed on with rags and hollow-eyed, 
And others limped, as they had journeyed wide. 

65 



My Poets. And oftenwhiles they sang when racked with pain, 
Or spake of field and flower, of Love's domain, 
When mured about by sad and noisome sights 
And lacking air and space and May delights. 

And yet methinks I loved their motley more 
Than those dream-singers that I saw before ; 
And yet methinks they looked of heavenly race 
By some strange token on their brow and face ! 

TWO MOTHERS 

A WOMAN walking the street adown 
Saw at a casement glint the gown 
Of a mother, meek, whose little son 
Had died with his child-joys just begun. 
And it smote her heart, for well she knew 
What mother-love with a life may do ; 
And she said, " Poor soul ! how sad that she 
Should lose the child in his grace and glee ! " 
For she thought of her boy that lived to-day, 
Though man-grown now and far away. 

But the woman there in the window-seat 
Looked with a smile, not sad, but sweet, 
And touched with pity, to the place 
Where she had marked the other's face ; 
And she said, " Poor soul ! her child is lost, 
For now he is only a man sin-tossed ! 
But the boy I watched in his bright young day, 
He bides in my heart a child for aye." 



66 



SEA AND SHORE 

HAVE you marked how the sea with foam 
At the kiss of the shore turns white ? 
She has found a love and a home ; 
Then why should she lack delight ? 

A thought lies cold at her heart, 

Till she pales all suddenly ; 
For she knows they must part, must part, 

When the tide sets out to sea. 

USES 

SWEET smells upsteal from the ground 
After the rain ; 
Sweet thoughts in the soul are found 
After long pain. 

Rain, with its dark and wet, 
Fathers the flowers ; 

Pain, on a mortal set, 

Saddens the hours, 

Only to gladder go 

After a span. 
Rain for the rose, I trow, 

Tears for man. 

A SEASCAPE OF TURNER'S 

I SEE the gulls and J smell the main, 
The wind goes shrieking shrilly by ; 
With cordage-creak and canvas-strain 
The good ship heaves to meet the sky. 

6? 



A Sea- 'Tis wild and wet on the waters now, 
scape of ^ -j^e oars must bend ere they reach the land ; 
" Yon man that makes alive the bow, 
His face means, Home and my baby* s hand. 

Ah, brave to show us, within four walls, 
The Pulse o' the sea, her angry might ! 
Ah, brave to show us how deep love calls 
Across the waves like a harbor-light ! 



PERMANENCY 

A LOVER carved upon a bed of stone 
His lady's name, and set thereto a rhyme ; 
And on the rock were marks beside his own, 
Scratched by a glacier in primeval time. 

And yet the passion that his spirit stirred, 

The while he cut her fond and fleeting name, 

Methinks was more eternal than the word 

The ice age spoke — time's snow against love's 
flame ! 



ON SYRIAN HILLS 

IT is said the Bedouins cry, on the Syrian hills, 
a clear 

Loud summons to War, and the tribes far 
distant hearken and hear, 
So wondrous rare is the air, so crystal the atmos- 
phere. 

68 



Their call is to arms ; but One, in the centuries On 
long ago, fy™* 

Spake there for Peace, in tones that were marvel- l ' 
lous sweet and low, 

And the ages they hear Him yet, and His voice do 
the nations know. 



PERSONALITY 

IF I heard a voice in the upper air 
That sounded heavenly sweet and fair, 
'Twould gladden me, my life would take 
A sudden leap for the music's sake. 

But gladlier far, O sweet, I stay 
Beside you here as you sit and play 
Soft dreamy things in the minor keys, 
Or major parts with their harmonies. 

For love is love, and soul seeks soul 
In the minor's sob or the major's roll ; 
And I know that back of the chords divine 
Are the hand and the beating heart of thine ! 

THE PRAYERS OF SAINTS 

Golden vials full of odors, which arc the prayers of saints. — 
Rev. v : S. 

NO fragrance of the earlv months, when 
earth 
Teems with the pledge of after-blossoming, 
No May day scents of bud and leaf, no morn 
Of June rose-regal — none of these have worth 

6 9 



The For sweetness of the savor they do bring 

^V ers Compared with that rich incense swift upborne 
of Saints, -n • i r> j> c 

* By saintly prayers unto Cjod s very tace — 

Soul emanations, odors mixed with grace, 

Perfumed and perfect for that heavenly place. 

TREES IN WINTER 

THROUGH a dumb-shifting veil of snow 
I mark the trees. The chestnuts bare, 
That reach black fingers up the air ; 
The beeches where, high branch and low, 

The leaves still hang in russet ranks ; 
The oaks, whose leaves are scanter, more 
Phantasmal-brown, mere ghosts of yore ; 
The elms, of shapelier tops and flanks. 

And then the pines : sole guests in green 
The summer does vouchsafe ; they stand 
Sedately, dropping from their hand 
The pungent cones ; dark, dark, I ween, 

Their thoughts, and deep and manifold. 
The winter grass seems doubly sere 
Beneath their vital boughs that fear 
No frost, that changeless front the cold. 

These stately creatures all I view 
As through an opal dimly ; then, 
Illimitable, mute to men, 
Above, a sky of hodden gray 
70 



That stretches on to that Somewhere Trees in 

Which bounds my ultimate land of dreams, Winter. 

Wherein the Ideal lures and gleams, 
Wherein the soul breathes native air. 

THE PATH 

FAR, far I've strayed me in the long endeavor 
To find the way of Truth ; 
All unfamiliar grow the paths, and ever 
I lose the step of youth, 

Until it seems I am foredoomed to wander 

In fruitless, weary quest, 
While strength and time and hope I do but 
squander, 

Seeking the final rest. 

Sometimes poor mortals, forest-bound, have 
plodded 
Along an unblazed trail, 
And felt strange fears and seen weird shapes em- 
bodied, 
That made their courage fail ; 

Then suddenly have found they circled blindly, 

And were not far astray, 
Led by some hand invisible but kindly 

Into a wonted way. 

So, haply, I, sore spent with ceaseless trving, 

Too tired to longer roam, 
May sudden see the path before me lying, 

And just ahead my home. 
71 



A ROYAL PROGRESS 

THE Summer is a queen who proudly makes 
A Royal Progress through the subject land : 
Whereat a festal look the highway takes, 
And e'en the byways, too, on every hand 
Turn gay with buds and birds and bloomy trees, 
The gracious Lady Sovereign for to please. 

EPITAPH OF AN ACTOR 

HERE lies a servant of the mimic art ; 
He pictured Life, its passion and its glee. 
Death bade him play, at last, a grim-faced part, 
His only make-up, man's mortality. 

RECOMPENSE 

FOR every man that dies, some little one 
Is born, they say, into this world of ours ; 
I wonder if, for every evil done, 

Some deed unfolds fair-hearted, like the flowers ? 

RICHARD WAGNER 

OLD deeds, old creeds, for centuries dead, 
rise out 
The grave and swarm beside the storied Rhine : 
The thunders of the heaven are girt about 
With silver zones of melody divine. 



72 



SUNRISE 

THE broadening of the light is like a strain 
Of mellow music from a golden horn 
Set to the huntsman's lips, who now is fain 
To play hunfs up, and wake the drowsy morn. 

RAIN AND SLEEP 

IT is no marvel that the morn is fair 
And fresh, that Nature's mood is blithe again ; 
For all the night these blessed her unaware : 
The balm of sleep, the baptism of rain. 

TRANSFORMATION 

THE butterflies are buttercups, wind-blown, 
Bright, airy flowers upon the summer's 
breast ; 
The buttercups, thick in the meadows sown, 
Are butterflies flight-weary, seeking rest. 



73 



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